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Want to get the kids' minds whirring? This fun escape room challenge will sharpen up their maths skills through intriguing games and puzzles. Aimed at older primary school children and S1 and S2 pupils, you can also play it as a family. Why not form teams and see who can escape first?

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Escape from Lochdonia Manor

It is a cold and dreary day – not that uncommon for a Scottish summer.

By a strange twist of events you find yourself at the bottom of a hill with three challenge ladders… each ladder leads up to a coloured door entrance to Lochdonia Manor. To reach the entrance, you must answer a set of challenges.

Using your maths skills, can you enter, get through and escape Lochdonia Manor?

You can download the challenge here.

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Moving on up

Which ladder will you challenge yourself to climb? Starting at the bottom, change one digit each time as you work your way up from the bottom rung to the door.

Illustration of red, green and blue ladders leading up to doors, with maths puzzles to solve along the rungs.

You can download the challenge and find the answers here.

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Image of a cartoon room where all of the walls and furniture are read.

Welcome to the red room

Once you've used your maths skills to climb the red ladder, you'll unlock the red room! There are three challenges in this room. If you get stuck with the first one – try the next. You do not have to do them in order. Sometimes taking a little time away from a challenge helps you to solve it (this is how mathematicians work).

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Image of a cartoon room where all of the walls and furniture are blue.

Welcome to the blue room

Solved the puzzles in the red room? Time to move onto the blue room, where three more puzzles are waiting!

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Image of a cartoon room where all of the walls and furniture are green.

Welcome to the green room

You'll find three more challenges in the green room – don’t worry if you need to go between them. You might find this easier than trying to solve them one at a time… sometimes taking a little time away from a challenge helps you to solve it.

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Image of a cartoon police officer standing in front of a set of gates with their hand up.

Well done, if you've completed all the puzzles, you've now escaped the rooms. But you've not escaped the manor yet – there are a few more puzzles to go! The Gatekeeper says you cannot pass, unless you can defeat him in one of his games. You'll need a partner to take on the role of Gatekeeper.

You can download the challenge here.

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